The next installment of Grand Theft Auto will feature a playable female character for the first time and will be set in Vice City, the game’s universe’s ersatz Miami, according to leaked images.
More than 90 videos and images from the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto VI were leaked online over the weekend in one of the biggest breaches of confidential data in gaming history.
The footage was posted on the GTAForums website by a user going by the name teapotuberhacker, who claimed to have accessed it by hacking Rockstar’s internal company Slack feed and gaining access to its servers.
It shows animation tests, level designs, and gameplay tests, including some voiced conversations between characters. The footage shows a female protagonist in a modern city of Vice City, also the setting for 2002’s Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
The original post was taken down, but not before the images and video went viral on social media. Rockstar Games’ parent company, Take-Two Interactive, has been issuing recalls to remove images from YouTube and Twitter.
The hacker has also threatened to leak the source code of Grand Theft Auto V, the 2013 installment of the game and one of the best-selling video games of all time, and the in-development version of Grand Theft Auto VI, which invites Rockstar Games . to negotiate an agreement.
Sources close to Rockstar Games have told The Guardian and Bloomberg that the leak represents an early version of the game that is already a year old.
In a statement posted on social media, the developer confirmed the leak. “We recently experienced a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage of the upcoming Grand Theft Auto,” the company said. “At this time, we do not anticipate any disruption to our live gaming services or any long-term effects on the development of our ongoing projects.”
He added: “We are very disappointed to be able to share with all of you in this way any details about our upcoming game.”
The videos clearly show a version of the game in progress, with debug commands and other technical information overlaid. Rockstar confirmed that GTA 6 was in “active development” earlier this year, although early work on the game likely began in 2014.
Leaks are harmful to video game developers not only because of the confidential information they represent, but because a leak can negatively affect the perception of a game before release. It’s common for in-development builds to look rough until the final months of development, and are rarely representative of the finished game, which is often misunderstood by uninformed viewers. Developers who spend years of their lives making big budget games are demoralized by leaks that don’t show the quality of work they put into the full product.
Alex Hern’s weekly dive into how technology is shaping our lives
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertisements and content funded by third parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Prominent developers in the games industry have come out in solidarity with the people who work at Rockstar Games over the weekend.
Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann, whose 2020 game The Last of Us Part II was leaked in full ahead of launch, tweeted: “To my fellow developers affected by the latest leak, please know that while it feels overwhelming right now same, it will happen. One day we’ll be playing your game, appreciating your craft, and leaks will be relegated to a footnote on a Wikipedia page.”
Grand Theft Auto V has sold 170 million copies in the nine years since its release, making it one of the most successful entertainment products ever released. Together with its online multiplayer mode, GTA Online, it is estimated to have generated more than $900 million for Take Two in 2020 alone. Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to break records when it releases, although Rockstar has indicated that it is still several years away.